Bicyclist

Today, friends and colleagues, after careful thought and extended consultations with my handlers, I have decided that I must reveal to you that I am a bicyclist American. Since early youth, I tried to impose upon my soul the reality of acceptable car culture. I had significant and legally recognized relationships with Suzuki Swift, Volkswagen Beetle and even Dodge Mini Ram Van. Together we rode the highs and lows of oil changes and tuneups. But it never felt right. My truth is that I am both physically and emotionally attracted to two-wheeled vehicles and will no longer deceive myself and others by burning fossil fuel and fouling the environment.

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver was arrested Friday after he allegedly struck a bicyclist, attempted to flee the scene and then threatened a witness with brass knuckles after he was cornered, police told a Bay Area television station. Culliver was arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run, reckless driving with injury and weapons possession, San Jose police said. Culliver, 25, was driving a white Ford Mustang when police said he struck a bicyclist and attempted to flee the scene, NBC Bay Area reported.

Actor Jason Alexander, who played George Costanza in the long-running "Seinfeld" TV series, hit a teenage bicyclist Tuesday in Mid-City, police officials said. The collision was reported shortly after 7:15 a.m. at Wilshire Boulevard and June Street. The 14-year-old boy was on his way to middle school when he was struck. He was taken to a hospital in stable condition. Los Angeles police took an accident report and are investigating the incident, but Alexander was not cited.

A sport utility vehicle sheared a fire hydrant and hit a power pole in La Mirada on Friday, sending a geyser of electrified water into the air that shocked a cyclist, authorities said. The crash was reported about 7 a.m. in the 14800 block of Artesia Boulevard, near Knott Avenue, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Authorities said the SUV was traveling west on Artesia Boulevard. At the same time, a bicyclist was heading east on the same side of the road, but it's unclear if the driver was trying to avoid hitting the bicyclist, authorities said.

A man on a bicycle was shot dead and another man was wounded in Koreatown on Saturday afternoon, police said. A bicyclist was struck by a white SUV near the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and San Marino Street around 1:20 p.m., according to Los Angeles Police Officer Karen Rayner. A man then stepped out of the car and fatally shot at the bicyclist as he lay on the ground, Rayner said. A second man was shot running away from the scene, receiving non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

January 9, 2014 | By Ruben Vives, This post has been updated and corrected, as indicated below.

A Metrolink train bound for Orange County from downtown L.A. fatally struck a bicyclist Thursday during the morning commute in Santa Fe Springs, officials said. The incident occurred around 7:10 a.m. near Lakeland Road and Bloomfield Avenue when the cyclist went around an arm gate and was struck by Metrolink train 682, according to Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson. No information on the identity or age of the cyclist was immediately available. [Updated, 10:38 a.m. PST Jan. 9: Metrolink officials said the railroad was cleared as of 9 a.m. Delays associated with the incident were expected to fade in time for afternoon commuters.

A man who was struck by a car while riding a bicycle on Saturday near the Caltech campus in Pasadena has died, according to police. The accident occurred around 6 p.m. on the 1100 block of East Del Mar Boulevard , between Wilson and Michigan avenues, said Pasadena Police Lt. Tom Delgado. The bicyclist, a man in his 30s whose name is being withheld pending notification of family members, died from his injuries at an area hospital, Delgado...

Beverly Hills police were searching for a man who rammed his BMW into a bicyclist in a suspected road-rage incident, authorities said Tuesday afternoon. The April 3 crime was captured on surveillance video that shows the white vehicle striking the biker head-on in an alley. "The driver intentionally rammed the bicyclist with his vehicle pinning him to a metal rolling trash bin," the Beverly Hills Police Department said in a statement. The driver fled the scene, in an alley between Wetherly and Almont drives.

A bicyclist was killed Wednesday night when he was struck by a car fleeing police after a shooting incident in Florence, authorities said. The victim was a 34-year-old Latino man, police said. He was hit about 10:45 p.m. at East 84th Street and South Central Avenue in Florence and was pronounced dead at the scene, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Christopher No said Thursday. The car struck the bicyclist and dragged him across the street, where it also knocked over a corner street sign, KTLA-TV reported.

A 34-year-old bicyclist was struck and killed by a vehicle in Van Nuys, authorities said Friday. Rolf Ruthnick of North Hollywood was pedaling his 10-speed bike east on Oxnard Street near Sunnyslope Avenue at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday when a vehicle struck him from behind, Los Angeles Police Sgt. John Amott said. The driver of the vehicle fled, and police have found no witnesses to the accident, he said. Ruthnick had left his job at the Valley Cab Co. at 1:18 a.m.

There's a joke about a little kid with a trike and a neighbor who professes to like young children and their energetic pedaling up and down the street. But then the neighbor has his driveway redone and the youngster wheels his way all over the wet cement. The homeowner pitches a fit, to which the child's father says, “I thought you liked the kids who ride around here.” “I like them in the abstract,” the neighbor replies, “but not in the concrete!” I have to confess to sharing his feelings about bicycles.

Anthony Navarro worked with solemn purpose and a box of tools, stripping the old discarded bicycle of its gear shifts, brakes and chain. He cut his finger, wiped a drop of blood on his pants and kept going. "It helps me with my anger when I'm doing it," said Navarro. "It brings me some kind of inner peace. " On Thanksgiving Day 2011, Navarro's 6-year-old son, Anthony, was riding his bicycle in front of the family's Oxnard home when he was struck by a pickup truck. "The moment I saw him, I knew he was gone," said Navarro, who reeled under the weight of sudden, unbearable loss.

If it had an ounce of buoyancy, "Girl on a Bicycle" might qualify as a diverting piffle. But Jeremy Leven's attempt at old-school romantic comedy, set in a postcard-pretty tourist's vision of Paris, is more of a foolish plod than a weightless rollick. The Euro-pudding of a premise concerns Italian tour bus driver Paolo, his German flight attendant fiancée and the title character, a French model who catches his eye as she crisscrosses the city fetchingly on two wheels. The alleged hilarity grinds into gear when Paolo accidentally hits the bicyclist with his bus, then pretends to be her husband to visit her in the hospital.

Detectives in Santa Ana are asking for the public's help in identifying a vehicle involved in a drive-by shooting that was captured on video. The video, shot by a home surveillance camera, shows the driver of a black car pulling up next to a man on a red bicycle while a passenger takes a shot at the bicyclist as he swerves away. The shooter misses and the bicyclist keeps riding. The incident occurred about noon Tuesday on East Myrtle Street, near Halladay Street, about a block from an elementary school.

January 9, 2014 | By Ruben Vives, This post has been updated and corrected, as indicated below.

A Metrolink train bound for Orange County from downtown L.A. fatally struck a bicyclist Thursday during the morning commute in Santa Fe Springs, officials said. The incident occurred around 7:10 a.m. near Lakeland Road and Bloomfield Avenue when the cyclist went around an arm gate and was struck by Metrolink train 682, according to Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson. No information on the identity or age of the cyclist was immediately available. [Updated, 10:38 a.m. PST Jan. 9: Metrolink officials said the railroad was cleared as of 9 a.m. Delays associated with the incident were expected to fade in time for afternoon commuters.

I like to think I've learned a lot about what it's like to be bicyclist on the streets of Los Angeles since this blog took up the RoadshareLA project (which you can find online and follow on twitter at #roadshareLA) last fall. I am still a die-hard, love-to-drive car girl - but an enlightened one: Yes, bicyclists have as much legal right to the road as drivers …. No, you can't feasibly license bicyclists the way we do drivers .… Separate bike lanes are crucial to making the city bikable - drivers, get over it. So why was I fuming at the bicyclist I found myself behind on Ohio Avenue in West Los Angeles one recent night?

Regarding "Pedaling to Work" (Valley Life, July 24), I have some suggestions for designers and bicyclists that will make the community more bicycle-friendly. I have two bicycles, one which has been in the family since 1940, and a 10-speed street bike that I have had for 12 years. Before I retired, I occasionally used my bicycle to commute to work in Woodland Hills. On other occasions, I went up to 20 miles on weekends. Now that I am retired, I use one for local errands and the other for exercise.

I find it interesting that, exactly on the date of the 200th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution, you publish a picture of (a true cross-section of upper-middle-class life) men, women and children on bicycles labeled "Scofflaws" (Times, Sept. 17). These people are obviously not interfering with the pleasure nor motion of anyone around them, and it is clear that many bicyclists so fit your label. The police, unfortunately, can select such individuals and literally charge them with a crime--such cycling is unlawful.

Authorities are searching for four bicyclists who went missing Sunday in the Angeles National Forest. The search began about 7 p.m. when the four cyclists were several hours late returning from their planned ride from Mt. Wilson to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Windsor Turnout in Pasadena, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The cyclists, who were not immediately identified, are from Glendale, North Hollywood, Rialto and Sunland. The Sheriff's Department said family members found automobiles belonging to the riders at the Windsor turnout. Search-and-rescue teams, aided by a helicopter, searched for the men -- who range in age from 28 to 38 -- until about 4 a.m. Monday, according to the authorities.

Mark Marren has watched three people struck by passing cars near a busy bridge that connects the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Atwater Village and Silver Lake. The most harrowing, he said, was in 2007, when he and a friend left work together on their bicycles. As they pedaled across the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, a car struck Marren's friend, hospitalizing him for six months. "I've gone to County [USC Medical Center] and seen my friends laying there because of that bridge," Marren said at a public forum recently.